Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

The T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion and Na­tion­al Coun­cil of Par­ent Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tions (NPTA) are ec­sta­t­ic about Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to scrap prepa­ra­tion class­es for the Au­gust 20 Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment in light of the re­cent uptick in lo­calised COVID-19 cas­es. How­ev­er, the Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry School Prin­ci­pals’ As­so­ci­a­tion (NAPSPA) does not be­lieve the de­ci­sion was war­rant­ed.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced the de­ci­sion yes­ter­day af­ter not­ing that since Ju­ly 21 there have been some 22 lo­cal­ly trans­mit­ted cas­es and a fur­ther 29 peo­ple con­tract­ing the virus from those pa­tients. This, in turn, led to the sub­se­quent clo­sure of 12 pri­ma­ry schools of which ei­ther staff or SEA pupils ei­ther con­tract­ed the virus or came in­to con­tact with some­one who test­ed pos­i­tive.

One week lat­er, the NPTA called for an end to class­es dur­ing a meet­ing with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and days lat­er, the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) joined that call.

Fol­low­ing the PM’s an­nounce­ment, TTUTA pres­i­dent An­to­nia Tekah-De Fre­itas said they were join­ing oth­er stake­hold­ers in breath­ing a col­lec­tive sigh of re­lief at the de­ci­sion.

“The as­so­ci­a­tion is pleased that the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go has fi­nal­ly heed­ed our calls and they have done what is best for the health and safe­ty of those in­volved,” Tekah-De Fre­itas said in a state­ment.

National Primary Schools Principals’ Association president Lance Mottley

RISHI RAGOONATH

“The clo­sure of schools was a nec­es­sary move to stop the spread of COVID-19 among our vul­ner­a­ble stu­dents. It is the po­si­tion of the as­so­ci­a­tion that the SEA prepa­ra­tion can con­tin­ue on­line as nec­es­sary.”

Tekah-De Fre­itas sug­gest­ed the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion part­ner with cor­po­rate T&T to en­sure all SEA can­di­dates have de­vices and con­nec­tiv­i­ty so the on­line teach­ing can go ahead. She al­so re­it­er­at­ed that the min­istry should hire ex­ter­nal peo­ple to su­per­vise the ex­am.

“The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic con­tin­ues to present chal­lenges to the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor. TTUTA will con­tin­ue to do what is nec­es­sary, even though some­times un­pop­u­lar, to keep stu­dents and ed­u­ca­tion prac­ti­tion­ers safe,” she said, adding TTUTA was ready to part­ner with the min­istry on plans for the re­open­ing of schools in Sep­tem­ber.

NPTA pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Sharmi­la Ra­heem al­so said they were pleased with the move.

“I’ve had a few calls from teach­ers and they were very hap­py and pleased. They want­ed to thank us for our in­put and stand­ing there with them and go­ing the ex­tra mile for them to achieve and to come to this point,” Ra­heem said.

How­ev­er, NAPSPA pres­i­dent Lance Mot­t­ley de­scribed the de­ci­sion as “un­for­tu­nate”. Mot­t­ley had pre­vi­ous­ly sug­gest­ed that in­stead of dis­con­tin­u­ing the class­es, the con­tact hours should have been re­duced and yes­ter­day still felt this was a bet­ter op­tion.

“We have been say­ing all along that we keep clos­ing down our schools or clos­ing down our coun­try. We have to find a way to co­ex­ist with COVID be­cause COVID is go­ing to be with us for a very long time,” Mot­t­ley told Guardian me­dia in a tele­phone in­ter­view.

“We main­tain that it was a small num­ber of stu­dents who had been af­fect­ed by COVID and re­gret­tably so. But we have to take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion the larg­er pop­u­la­tion of stu­dents. There are 19,300 stu­dents in to­tal who are ex­pect­ed to write the SEA. There are 476 schools. Be­tween 10 to 12 schools have been closed - the ma­jor­i­ty of them out of an abun­dance of cau­tion...the num­bers in our opin­ion did not war­rant the clo­sure of schools.”

De­spite this, he said the as­so­ci­a­tion un­der­stands the fears and con­cerns be­hind the de­ci­sion and will pro­vide the nec­es­sary sup­port to get the stu­dents over the fin­ish line.

“We would con­tin­ue to work as best as we can with our teach­ers who would be work­ing with our stu­dents while they are at home in prepa­ra­tion for the SEA so that they can do their best,” Mot­t­ley said.